


Missing

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [25]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Depression, Drabble, F/M, Prompt Fic, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-14
Updated: 2011-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Generated prompt. Warden/Alistair, hunted down. TW for self-injury, self-loathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, Sten shook Alistair into consciousness. The mountain air was cold, and bit into his bare skin like so many knives.

"Wake. Now. The Warden is missing."

 _And I'm what, chopped liver?_ he thought grumpily, but knew better than to voice it. "Missing? What do you mean missing?"

"How much clearer must I speak? Her armour is here. She is not."

A thin flash of fear shot through Alistair, into the pit of his bowels. They had taken first watch together. He had _seen_  her enter her tent. "Stay on watch with Oghren. I'll find her. Did she take Gelert?"

"No."

"Good." Alistair had already started walking, and whistled for the mabari as he buckled his splintmail back on. Gelert came running, head cocked. "C'mon, boy. We're going to find your master. Find Theramina."

Gelert seemed to pick up on Alistair's anxiety, and wended a trail through the scrub with his nose to the ground. Alistair kept his sword half-drawn and his footsteps quiet, ears pricked for any sign of trouble. She'd been uncharacteristically silent since they left Orzammar, and he'd suspected homesickness. Under cover of night and blankets, however, she'd denied it, and asked him to just tumble her senseless. She was rougher than usual, heavier in her movements and need. It wasn't like her at all.

A storm of barking and an almighty rustle of bushes snapped Alistair back to the presence very quickly. Up went his sword. The back of his neck bristled, and he broke into a run. Had Gelert flushed something from the brush? Darkspawn? Blood mage? Worse? Crashing through knee-high trees and brush, he bumbled towards a crevasse in the rockface, nearly smashing his nose into the stone as he slipped on the icy ground. He peered into it, and gasped.

Within it he saw a bright green eye, and he could have sworn he heard a sharp intake of breath. It could have been a wildcat, but Gelert's bark was not the sharp, loud baying for darkspawn blood. It had the affectionate note he kept for one person, and one person alone.

"Theramina." He tried squeezing in, but the fault was not wide enough to admit him. It led to a shallow cave, the walls of which she was currently pressed against. "Maker's breath, how did you get IN there?"

"Don't know. Don't really care. Please. Please go away, _please_."

"Now why would I do that? There's not a lot of people I'd risk my armour freezing closed for, you know. Gelert's here with me. Sten found you missing. They're all going to miss you pretty soon."

"Nobody is going to miss me." The stone gave her voice a hollow ring. "They'll all forget. The Stone won't take me when I'm gone. Take them all to Denerim, Alistair. Claim your throne. End this nughumping Blight." The words were tight, controlled, squeezed out through gritted teeth.

"You're kidding. I couldn't lead that party out of a mud puddle!" His voice took on a hysterical edge. "You saved the Dalish," he said as he pressed his palms to the damp, cold rock. Gelert whined his assent. "You saved the mages from Uldred. You put a king on the Orzammar throne. You _fixed_  it."

"Did I now. My sister doesn't seem to think so."

"Mina, why?"

"Don't call me that!" she screamed, her voice raw with despair. "You don't—only Rica used to call me that and I don't—I don't deserve...I broke _everything!_ She could have been happy if I just _looked the other way_ for once—"

"Bhelen could have been a killer. You worried. You told me that!"

"But _she would have been happy_ ," she sobbed. "She's wanted a good man all her life. All her sodding life! I wanted that for her too, I wanted her to be happy! And I—I took that away. I would have done _anything_ for her, Alistair. I have _killed_ to protect her. I would _die_ for her and if she asked for my heart I would tear it it out of my chest, but I couldn't let well enough alone—" Alistair heard the faint scrabbling of nails against mail, and the scrape of metal against rock—and then the clunk of a head against stone. It was muffled and gritty and more chilling than any darkspawn's cry.

"Theramina!" Clunk. Clunk. "Love!" Gelert started barking, loud and urgent. The noise only escalated in volume and frequency. The tang of blood hit his nose. His belly lurched. " _Enough!_ Come out from there!" Desperately he reached an arm through the crack—and touched a bare foot. It was damp. Whether from sweat, blood or ice, he did not know. He squeezed it, hard. "Please, love. Come out of there. I can't reach you from where I am. She doesn't want you to die."

The long, cold silence stretched out for an age. "Who?" she asked.

"Your sister."

"I don't have a sister," she croaked. "I don't have a sister no more." There was a keen longing to the words, even as she whispered them over and over with a quaver in her voice until it faded into silence.

She let him pull her out after that, but refused all other help on the way back to camp. The party was waiting when she got back, and she did not try to explain herself. She let Alistair make up a story about darkspawn that nobody believed. When Wynne checked her over, the back of her head was bruised and bloody. Her unarmoured body was scraped raw by the stone, and she was covered in dust and blood. Her eyes were rimmed red and stayed that way for many days, and the emerald spark within them had been snuffed out. This, Alistair suspected, was what she had looked like before he'd met her: dirty, raw and fiercely uncaring of anything—even herself.

He forgot the date eventually, but never the day. That was when the love of his life started to die.


End file.
